A mass murderer responsible for killing 77 people in Norway just won part of a human-rights case against the government

A Norwegian mass murderer has won part of a human-rights case
against the government.

Anders Behring Breivik, a right-wing extremist who was
responsible for the deaths of 77 people in Norway in July
2011, sued the Norwegian government after his arrest and
imprisonment for having violated his human rights.

An Oslo district court has now ruled
that the Norwegian government did indeed violate Breivik's rights
as they breached an article prohibiting degrading treatment of
prisoners under the European Convention on Human Rights.

The ruling cited that authorities did not give enough
attention to Breivik's mental health when determining his
conditions in prison. The court also ordered the
Norwegian government to pay Breivik's legal costs of $41,000
(331,000 kroner).

During his 2011 killing spree, Breivik detonated a bomb in Oslo
and then went on a shooting spree on a nearby island in which
dozens of teenagers at a camp were killed.

Breivik
claimed during his initial trail in 2012 that he was "a
military commander in the Norwegian resistance movement and
Knights Templar Norway."

His attacks were aimed at stopping the spread of multiculturalism
and Muslim immigration into the country.

General
view of a cell inside Skien prison, south of Oslo, February 12,
2016.Reuters

After his initial trial in 2011, Breivik has been held in
isolation in a luxurious prison cell.

According to Agence France Presse, Breivik's cell has three
rooms, "one for living, one for studying, and a third for
physical exercise — as well as a television, a computer without
internet access and a game console. He is able to prepare his own
food and do his own laundry."

However, Breivik and his lawyer are suing Norway, claiming the
state has violated two clauses of the European Convention on
Human Rights, thus violating his human rights in prison.

General
view of the gym at Skien prison, south of Oslo, February 12,
2016.Reuters

Breivik maintains that Oslo's treatment of him violates the
clauses against "inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment," and also the clauses guaranteeing prisoners the
right to respect for "private and family life" and
"correspondence," AFP
notes.

A Norwegian court supported Breivik's case of suffering under
"inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment," but the
court dismissed
his claim or having his right to see and correspond with his
family as having been violated.

As Fusion
notes, his complaints stemmed from the fact that Breivik
is essentially being kept in isolation. His cell is set off
from the rest of the prison complex, isolating him from the other
prisoners. He also infrequently has guests, causing his main
human interaction to be with his guards. His mail is also
censored.

This isolation has apparently taken a psychological toll on him,
Breivik's lawyer
told AFP.

Breivik has previously stated that he has been forced to
strip 880 times in total while a prisoner, Reuters reports.

General
view of a cell inside Skien prison, south of Oslo, February 12,
2016.Reuters

However, Breivik has had a history of complaining about his life
in prison. As The New Yorker reported
in 2015, Breivik has complained about everything in prison,
ranging from how his room had a PlayStation 2 instead of a
PlayStation 3 and the quality of the rubber pen he is allowed to
write with in his cell.

Breivik's complaints, including his near complete isolation,
would be hard to square with the American view of prisons.
Prisons in Norway are nearly
unimaginably luxurious, with the aim being rehabilitation
instead of penalization. The prisons include vocational classes,
video-game consoles, well-prepared kitchens, and in some cases
even recording studios with instruments.

Many of these luxuries are unavailable to
Breivik, however. Still, he is currently serving only a 21-year
sentence for his crime, which is the maximum
sentence under Norway's penal system.

In 2033, at the end of his sentence, Breivik will be evaluated to
see if rehabilitation has been successful. If it is judged to
have not been, his sentence can be extended for five-year
increments indefinitely.